Zeeshan Aleem
@zeeshanaleem
Political columnist and editor MS NOW. Say hello: zeeshan.aleem@versantmedia.com Sign up for my free politics newsletter:
Wow, new Democratic presidential primary schedule just dropped. First 3 - South Carolina, then Nevada, then Nevada. Iowa is gone from the early window. www.nbcnews.com/politics/202...
These conversations are maddeningly shallow. If you reverse the order, are you saying “brown voters don’t matter”? This crude exploitation of identitarian politics is such a dead end. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/u...
I think these takes are getting it backward. A lot of those commentators stayed on X in the first place because of their ideological/tactical/faction inclinations. They’d be saying the same thing on bluesky if they were interested/felt they had more of an audience here.
I wrote about how establishment Dems fuming over the Mamdani/DSA insurgency don’t have a coherent theory of where the leftists belongs in their coalition -- they actually just want to disenfranchise them. www.ms.now/opinion/zohr...
As my colleague @hayesbrown.bsky.social pointed out to me when discussing this policy, Trump is in fact doing exactly what Republicans accuse Democrats of doing with immigration, as framed by the racist “great replacement” theory.
Project 2029 says it’s not about being realistic, it’s about exciting people. Who is excited by these things? It’s one thing to say “we are moderates who believe in centrism.” But it is delusional, if not deceptive, to describe things like “the annoyance economy” as animating voters.
I continue to believe that establishment Dem "populism" is just do more or less the same policies but use profanity occasionally. Worst of all worlds. It's also basically an inversion of Zohran's political posture.
Just a reminder that at the 2024 DNC AOC very clearly toed the party line and refused to issue a challenge to the party on genocide.
Holy shit. Apparently the US and Israel wanted to former Iranian president *Mahmoud Ahmadinejad* as a new leader. And this is how it went awry: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/u...
The author of this WSJ column walks right up to the edge of saying he thinks that Chinese people are ugly, and that that’s part of why he thinks they have an inferior society. www.wsj.com/opinion/free...
The NYT’s dek here is so funny because it replicates the author's ludicrous PR rhetoric for his blunders. He has "started his own investigation" of his book on AI & truth after people discovered he made things up by credulously using AI? *The book* was the investigation, he fucked it up!
I rewatched HBO’s “Generation: Kill,” perhaps in part due to the morbid mood inspired in me by the war in Iran. Some notes.
My favorite thing about figures like Naomi Wolf and Candace Owens is that the right can't control the firehose of their madness.
What's to prevent US-Israeli strikes in Tehran from reproducing the annihilation of Gaza? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/w...
Iranian Kurds make up about 10% of the population; are highly organized and armed; and say they are seeking greater autonomy within Iran. www.wsj.com/livecoverage...
I know Kasparian, a commentator for The Young Turks, says she has "left the left," but this is still so shocking and reprehensible. She quote tweeted it saying she stands by it, and then pinned that to her profile. It appears that a lot of a fascists on X are happily boosting it.
You can't negotiate with this kind of activist, they're impervious to empiricism and moral common sense.
It's like a tornado chaser, except the thrill is measles? I'm speechless honestly. www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...
This, via the NYT's morning newsletter, seems like a strange way to frame Iran's nuclear program, considering there was a deal limiting the program that was working.